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Flash back to circa 2005 — Who knew? A quick search to find like minds with whom I could practice my fleeing Spanish, would lead to such a great adventure? Indeed, 4 years ago, my Google search led me to a fruitless dead end. There were no Spanish Speaking networks in Toronto! At least not ones wanting to be found easily. Where did Spanish speakers convey then? Shady backrooms accessible only through back way alleys? Where you had to knock 7 times to the rhythm of La Curacha and dance a riff from the Macarena before a doorman suavely said ‘Si’ and allowed you entry? Seriously, I was at a loss.

Ah, such dichotomy in between the world wide web and the Spanish speaking community in Toronto.
Then the one thing I have learned is, if you can’t find something that you need, then well, create it. As such I started a group on Meetup.com. Back then the site had already been at it for a few years and it seemed like the perfect venue. For those not in the know, Meetup allows people to become an organizers and pretty much become an event planner. If people like your group then they join and off you go.

It went well at the beginning and with time I decided to branch out into other areas. Mostly social, since it is my belief that there are never enough ways to meet new people and enlarge one’s circle of friends. As such, the Toronto 23-35 and the Toronto 25-40 Social groups came to life about a year later. It seemed easy at first, pick a random pub, send an email to the then 10 members or so and see what would turn out. ‘Keep it simple’ I used to say.

Well, 334 events later, we are crossing quite the milestones! What started as smalls flower requiring plenty of attention and care have become a weed and is spreading like wildfire! On May 1st, we will having a party to celebrate the 3 group’s combined 3130 members! Incredible!

It has been quite the journey, meeting so many interesting people including some very quirky ones. If anything, it was a constant reminder of just how different and alike we all are. Regardless of religion, ethnicity or age, we all found something in common. The underlying desire not to be alone and to share experiences with one another. Some pragmatists would also include dancing and booze but digress it has been well worth it.

Aside the countless friendships, many have found significant others within the hundreds and a few –5 couples, that I know of– have gone off and even gotten married! You know, its corny but being able to make a positive difference in people’s lives is really quite the upper, not to mention Dharma-friendly. Take that, Law Of Attraction!

What will the future hold? Who can tell at this point… but I consider myself, not only I have learned some valuable skills but made some friends who I cherish and count myself as being very lucky to have meet. I am sure, eventually a point will come in which I may not have time to keep them up, but slowly a new generation of people are coming in, helping out as the groups keep on expanding but until then, let the Pachangas go on!

NOTE: READ PREVIOUS POST FIRST.

Stem Research, why are people okay with this?

Perhaps in the end, perhaps people are tired of an old parable book telling me to throw sheep off a cliff to clean my sins. Wait that’s the old Testament. Okay, New Testament, because it says if someone smacks your cheek then that I should give him the other — good moral. What a great book! Wait, later it read that if someone hits your cheek to smack him back. Eye for an eye!

Are people tired of ancient bi-polarism trying to rule people’s daily lives?. The fact is that when it starts saving lives, Religion as a whole will probably just quietly accept it, as no one is disputing the earth is the center of the universe anymore.

Food for thought, technically, are you allow to ‘refuse’ treatment as the Bible says you cannot choose to take your own life which if you refuse treatment isn’t that like doing the same? Only God can do that, right?

Aha, Religion backpedals itself into vagueness yet again. People might be tired about that.
Also because religion per se has nothing to do with this topic, as there is no difference in between killing an embryo which would have been a life than a man masturbating, washing the sheet and killing millions of possible (half) humans. Harsh but a point to think about.

Either way, I am sure everyone is going to be waiting to see results.

If you swing a cat down a street, chances are you will hit someone looking for a job or someone counting their lucky stars they have one. ‘It seems no one feels very safe at the moment,’ a friend warned. ‘You should feel lucky too.’

Apparently, one can’t switch on a TV without fear mongering smacking you in face in the form of news anchors warning you, your neighbour and swinging cats in general of the hole in the mud the economy is right now.

And are we? In a word, yes. It seems we have been face first in it for quite sometime, just didn’t know it. Yet even with all these fears, I am still prepping my resume for a excursion into the land of employers.

The word on the street is that for every job posting out there,  Human Resources personnel are getting waist deep in resumes. Not like they did not get swamped before, although metaphorically speaking it seems back then it was only about ankle-deep, and that my friends, was considered business as usual. But not anymore.

So, here I am, typing away. Borrowing ideas from one employers’ list of job qualifications and unmercifully pasting them onto my resume. Let’s see… One from that job off Monster.ca… another from Workopolis.com and a third off Craigslist, its like cherry picking in July! The idea behind such intellectual borrowing is that in the end, you have filled your resume with exactly what you can do for the employer, which at times is less than what you can actually perform, however one is not here to prove your ego but to prove you can align your strengths to theirs. If you want to apply for a Marketing position and you can also Ethernet their entire office network on top of that, chances are they will not give you the job. As such, delete the Ethernet part, emphasize your MS-Office wizardry ‘Look everyone! I too can print in Word!’ Thank God for the highly payed government sponsored recruiter who shared that little gold nugget.    

‘Tell rather than show.’ That is a good piece of advise I picked off  an employment advise website. “Show your accomplishments!’ another generic site went on, ‘Avoid being like the rest!’ Okay, got it! I am so pumped up!

‘Don’t bore a HR manager with crazy antics’ cries another. Uh, alright, so I will use New Times Roman, can’t go wrong with the classics, then BOOM, another site demands you use anything but New Times Roman as it is antiquate and old fashioned. ‘HR Managers see hundreds of resumes a day, they expect you to be different!’ Arrgggh!

Anyone with a pulse will agree of the sheer disgust that is writing your own resume. Akin to a mixture of Chinese water torture and being flambeyed alive; somewhere among those two is in the happy median where the typing and retying your resume resides. It is a necessary evil, of course, ‘Or stay in your crappy job then!’ is often be the rebuttal of many site and indeed they are right.

Thus I hammer on trying to be distinct… HR managers like that… but not too much, HR managers apparently  that too. Finally, after two hours, I finally extracted the juice out of the words I originally started with. We are talking liquid gold ladies and gentleman. I write yet another cover-letter and press send. Thank God that is over… Oh wait, there are another nineteen job posting to go. DAMN!
Drip. Drip. Drip.